Friend began to construct sculptural figures from beaten sheet aluminium when he was living in Ceylon, and exhibited a collection of them in Colombo in 1962. During 1963 and 1964, he adapted his technique to sheet copper, and produced a further exhibition of sculptures and fountains. Surprised personages in Greek masks balance on reeling chariots; soldiers, caught leaping in mid-air, pour from the chest of the Trojan horse, the sculptures convincingly trap the movement of a figures, the thrust of an arm or a leg, the sense of rising, falling or plunging in space. They are not so much sculptures, however, as three-dimensional drawings made with copper lines in the air.¹

1. Hughes, R., Donald Friend, Edwards and Shaw, Sydney, 1965, pp. 74, 76